Hippolyta was the Queen of the Amazons, a nation of warrior women. Her tiny footsteps refer to the feet of hundreds of tiny metal and plastic soldiers.

Wednesday, 13 September 2017

An ASQL AAR - Alien Imperials vs Human Colonials

On Sunday my Alien Imperial forces made their debut against a Human Colonial army last Sunday at the club. The Human commander was Alex Self, the author of the Alien Squad Leader rules.

We played a 200pt game with the chosen scenario being Envelopment. As the defender, Alex had two objectives to defend and, as the attacker, I had a second deployment zone, which I decided would be behind the jungle area at the bottom of the first photo.

Alex deployed first, with the bulk of his troops in the two built-up areas which represented the objectives he would be defending. He also had two groups of civilian refugees to escort from the field of battle. He had two defence turrets in the objective areas and these worried me a fair bit.

I decided that I would have to place a threat on my right flank to tie down his tanks while assaulting the lefthand objective with waves of tribal auxiliaries, supported by droids from my flanking deployment area. The bulk of my alien infantry, supported by heavy weapons were on the right;

and I had two lines of Tribals on the left. The Beasts would be able to advance rapidly. so long as the commander and sub-commander on this flank could motivate them to advance. The second alien wave also had some Shooters.

Before long, the scary Beasts started to close in on the objective.

The droids began to deploy behind the cover of the jungle as the Beasts prepared to assault the gallant Human defenders.

This combat would go on for a number of rounds and prove to be decisive.

The Tribals and Beasts took casualties, but they also caused a lot of damage, gradually whittling down the defenders.

Elsewhere, Human Colonial Police and Defence Troops escorted the civilians away from the fighting. I ignored these. My aim was the two objectives, with most of the fighting going on around the buildings on my left. Fire support from my heavy droids kept the Human artillery pinned and this allowed the Beasts to assault them.

Finally, the breakthrough came and Aliens were inside the built-up zone. Over on my right, which was pretty much a stalemate for a long while, my heavy weapons managed to destroy the defensive turret and cause some damage to Alex's tanks.

Below, you can see the Human Floating Platforms (with heavy weapons) advancing into firing range. These managed to cause casualties to my Alien Infantry and Elite power-armoured troops who I had deployed to threaten the Human rear.

Finally, my Tribals and Beasts destroyed the Human heavy weapons and defensive turret, which enabled me to unleash my droids without fear of being knocked out. Slowly but inexorably, the Aliens wore down the Human resistance. First, the lefthand objective fell to my forces and I ordered my right flank to advance on the righthand built-up area. Below, you can see the Humans deploy more infantry from an APC (which would later get shot to pieces by my droids).

The Alien troops closed in on the righthand objective. As I had already managed to destroy enough Human stands to take them to break point, all I needed to do was outnumber the Human defenders in the second objective to win the game.

And, after a few delays, this happened when my robot infantry won a combat against the Human defenders and I advanced a heavy droid into the built-up zone, together with some infantry who had managed to destroy a tank in combat..

So, as a first game with this new army, I was well-pleased with the outcome. My plan worked pretty well and the Alien Beasts proved to be amazingly effective at the task I'd set them, which was to draw fire and get into hand-to-hand combat quickly. When I started to use my Alien Infantry, they proved to be a real shooting threat with their superior energy weapons (which allows them to roll three D6 and discard the lowest scoring one). I think that using droid troops is also a good idea, as it lets you use your command stands to keep the Tribals moving forwards as much as possible.

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A few things about me

Yes, I am a female wargamer. There aren't many of us around, but we make up in quality what we lack in numbers.
I mainly play games using the TooFatLardies rules; Chain of Command, I Ain't Been Shot, Mum and Sharp Practice version 2. I've also got the Field Of Glory Renaissance rules but I'm not impressed by them.
I'm currently playing Alien Squad Leader and enjoying that a lot and I'm also getting into Frostgrave, playing a bit of HoTT and developing an interest in Cthulhu games and A Very British Civil War. I'm definitely enjoying painting the larger figures. Now, really liking Congo a lot and looking to start playing Saga now the version 2 rules are available.